Mines needed to run like factories to become more profitable in the future, the University of the Witwatersrand’s Centre for Mechanised Mining Systems director Declan Vogt said at the Swedish mining initiative conference in Pretoria earlier this month.

He explained that mechanisation in mining was necessary and should be treated like a system, noting that, where mechanisation had failed, a systematic element was missing.

“Mines are getting deeper, which means they are getting hotter. Most mines use at least 20% of their capital expenditure on cooling and ventilation systems.”

Vogt added that the deeper the mine, the more seismically active it became, stressing that careful thought had to go into mine design and operations to reduce the impact of seismicity.

“Access to the rock face is another challenge, as it is becoming increasingly difficult, and mines are facing a situation where a miner could spend three hours walking in and out of the rock face area.”

He further highlighted that miners also had to get out of the mines during blasting, which can take about eight hours of the day, which eventually translated into mines losing 21% of their two-week schedule.

“Miners are on the face only 33% of the time, which is a big cost to the industry and a big challenge currently. “Seventy-five per cent of the platinum industry’s mines are not making enough money to sustain themselves and, in the gold sector, the only mining house that is currently profitable is Gold One,” Vogt said.

He added that it is imperative for mines to modernise and change the way they operate, stressing that this would mean mechanisation for some mines and improved methods of managing an operation for others.

“Safety has to improve, which can be done through mechanisation. What would help the industry greatly is continuous production, going from 33% to 100%, which means working the face all the time.”

Vogt explained that key areas for South Africa’s future mines included removing people from working areas for safety reasons, reducing dilution where possible, increasing product value and pulling different levers for cost efficiency.

With a new generation of ultralow-profile (ULP) machines coming on the market, mechanisation is becoming a more viable option. There is an entire ULP fleet that can deal with all mining operations, including drilling the blast holes, sweeping, dozing and installing roof bolts,” he stated.

Vogt added that there are currently 43-million tons of gold, platinum and chrome being produced from narrow-reef mines through mechanisation, adding that more mines in South Africa should consider mechanisation.